WILD SWAN. 
533 
shudder at the prospect of approaching dissolu- 
tion, the swan was said to chant in the moment 
of its agony, and with harmonious sounds prepare 
to breathe its last. This fable was not lost upon 
our Shakspeare : 
“ Let music sound, while he doth make his choice ; 
Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end.” 
The Count de Buffon, with his usual elegance, 
has thus described this fabulous property : u When 
about to expire, and to bid a sad and tender adieu 
to life, the swan poured forth those accents so 
sweet, so affecting ; and which, like a gentle and 
doleful murmur, with a voice low, plaintive, and 
melancholy, formed its funereal song. This tear- 
ful music was heard at the dawn of day, when the 
winds and the waves were still ; and they have been 
seen expiring with the notes of their dying hymn.” 
No fiction of natural history, no fable of anti- 
quity, was ever more celebrated, oftener repeated, 
or better received. It occupied the soft and lively 
imagination ; poets, orators, even philosophers 
adopted it, as a truth too pleasing to be doubted. 
And well may we excuse such fables ; they were 
amiable and affecting; they were worth many dull 
and insipid truths ; they were sweet emblems to 
feeling minds. The swan doubtless chants not its 
approaching end ; but in speaking of the last flight, 
the expiring effort of a fine genius, we shall ever, 
with tender melancholy, recall the classical and 
pathetic expression, “ It is the song of the siuan ! ” 
